RETIREES: States see revenue, put out welcome mat

PIPESTEM, W.Va. (AP) - Walter Andrews wants to spend the rest of his life in this town nestled in the mountains of West Virginia. Fresh mountain air. Lush green forests. Small town atmosphere.

Nothing like Florida.

"Florida, like everything else, has gotten too crowded," said Andrews, an 83-year-old retired accountant. He moved to his mountaintop home in Pipestem three years ago after living his entire life in the Baltimore area, and never considered joining some of his other former neighbors who went south.

More states like West Virginia are trying to attract retirees as a new way to boost their population and tax base. They hope to lure them from out of state, and keep their own residents from moving to more popular destinations like Florida and Arizona.

"All you see out here is the power lines, and that's it," Andrews said as he gazed out into woods that surrounded his home.

Florida and Arizona need not worry yet about the increased competition, though: Their warm climates, established amenities and word of mouth from current residents will allow them to keep dominating the industry, analysts say.

Still, the retirement industry is quickly turning from an economic development avenue into a recruiting war, said Dr. Steven House, director of the American Association of Retirement Communities.

States are trying to attract retirees of all ages, but especially "the relatively young, well-educated and affluent - that's frequently what the migrating retiree is," House said.

The vast majority of retirees, about 85 percent, stay at or close to home, he said.

What the industry is now preparing for, he said, is the onslaught of aging baby boomers who are nearing retirement age.

In 1999, the median household income for someone age 55 to 64 was $44,597, Census Bureau data shows. That was up from $44,120 in 1998 and $41,407 in 1989, with each of those figures adjusted for inflation.

The Mississippi Development Authority says the typical retiree it tries to recruit has a median family income of about $33,000, but brings about $320,000 in liquid assets.

The buying power of one retiree household moving in from another state is the economic equivalent to 3.7 factory jobs, said Lauren Upchurch of the Mississippi agency. And you don't get the pollution that comes with factories, she added.

"The state has recognized the value of retiree attraction as an industry, and they treat it as such," Upchurch said. "Mississippi wanted to categorize itself as a unique retirement destination."

There are no national estimates of the industry's worth. Mark Fagan, sociology professor at Jacksonville State University, estimated that the country's roughly 68 million people age 50 and older have a combined annual income of $900 billion. In 1998, Florida retirees spent $37 billion, he said.

Some states like North Carolina, California and Nevada are already well established retirement destinations. Mississippi began its statewide program five years ago, while West Virginia and Kentucky started this past year.

For West Virginia, that essentially means that one of the oldest state populations in the nation could get even older. According to Census Bureau figures, the median age of the state's residents is nearly 39, oldest in the country.

Andrews moved to an area in West Virginia once dominated by the coal mining industry but which now is in the uphill process of reshaping its economy. Though at age 83 he's older than the typical retiree that states want to attract, he had the money saved up to buy his isolated 2-acre mountaintop property for $200,000.

"When I told people back home I was going to West Virginia, they thought I was crazy," Andrews said.

Ross Weeks, 64, moved from Williamsburg, in eastern Virginia, to Tazewell, in western Virginia about 55 miles southwest of Pipestem. Weeks eventually plans to retire in Tazewell.

Living in Tazewell, Weeks said, "doesn't do the kind of damage that high-speed areas can do. Pipestem and Tazewell are coordinating their retiree attraction programs.

Even Illinois and Maine, states from which Florida and Arizona get their transplants, are getting involved.

"Climatic conditions favor Sun Belt locations, and there is a movement out of the most populous and crowded states," said Fagan, who previously worked on Alabama's retiree program. "Moving to a place with less congestion and fewer of the big city problems is becoming more attractive to retirees."

* For more information, see the Web site of the American Association of Retirement Communities:

http://www.the-aarc.org/

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